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Jim’s Vegetarian Chili (yes, really)

This is a vegetarian Chili recipe that I’ve been perfecting for years. It’s really tasty, stupid healthy and will definitely warm you up on a cold day. Best served with a pan of cornbread – the non-sweetened kind!

My preferred cornbread recipe is here, though I add 1/4 shredded cheddar cheese and a diced jalapeno for interest.

1 bottle of beer (optional – any beer works, but a bock or stout is best – you want something sweet and heavy. I prefer Shiner Bock and use 1 bottle for the chili and 1 for the chef)

3 tablespoons chili powder (start with 2 tablespoon and increase until you get the heat right)

1 tablespoon white sugar (may need to increase to 2 depending on the cocoa and other flavors)

2 teaspoons brown sugar

1 tablespoon ground cumin

1 tablespoon dark, unsweetened baking cocoa (yes, REALLY)

1 teaspoon chipotle powder (start at ½ teaspoon and increase if you want more heat/smoke flavor. BE CAREFUL here – some chipotle powder is pretty mild and some is pretty hot)

1 teaspoon salt (increase later to taste)

1 teaspoon vinegar (white or cider)

½ teaspoon oregano

¼ teaspoon fresh ground black pepper

2-3 tablespoons butter (yes, really)

Instructions

In a 4 quart saucepan simmer onions and garlic in 3 tablespoons of vegetable stock until translucent.

Add remaining ingredients except for beans and corn and simmer for 45 minutes.

Add beans and corn and simmer for 15 minutes more.

Check spices and adjust to taste. Salt, sugar and pepper are the most commonly required spices.

Increase to 2 cans of each kind of beans to stretch a bit. May require a bit more spices if you do this.

Serve with cornbread, cheese and sour cream.

Pumpkin Spice FrankenPancakes

Today’s Dirty Deed: The Pumpkin Spice FrankenPancake!

What is a FrankenPancake, you might ask? Well, it’s a mashup of a couple different recipes that ultimately provided one of the tastier pancakes that Laura and I have eaten – ever!

I started with a half a can of leftover pumpkin mix that Laura used to make me some Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls for my birthday (yum! give them a try), a desire for pancakes and, more specifically, a desire for buttermilk pancakes. The interwebs failed us on a recipe for all of the above, but I figured “what the hell:” we have a buttermilk pancake recipe from The Joy of Cooking that is known to be good and we also have a good recipe for pumpkin spice waffles from Epicurious, so how hard could it be to mash them up. The answer: dead simple!

Ingredients
Dry

1 1/2 cups All Purpose flour

3 tablespoons brown sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

Wet

1 1/2 cups buttermilk

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

2 large eggs

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 can pumpkin

Instructions

Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl and make sure to break up any lumps of brown sugar

Whisk wet ingredients together in a second bowl

Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients and gently whisk them together, mixing until just combined

Spoon 1/3 cup of mix onto griddle for each pancake and cook as normal for pancakes

Stash in a warm oven until all pancakes are done

Serve with butter, maple syrup, sausage and/or bacon

Enjoy!!!

Peaches!

A few weeks ago we were gifted with a large box of peaches. (Thank you Betsy!) It looked this (but full):